I Disagree

Well, it finally happened. I just wrote my first comment on an article that opposed the opinion of another reader. Big deal, you say? Well, if you knew me really well you would probably agree that my natural tendency is to avoid conflict.

Today I was reading an article that was mentioned in the Health Informatics Technology LinkedIn Group that I belong to which took me to a Wall Street Journal article in the Careers section. When I finished this article I spotted something else.

I Disagree

Nothing attracts the attention of a sports crazed society than a star in a slump and what they are doing to get out of it – with a picture of one of my favorite of all time sportsman, Jack Nicklaus!

I read the article with interest, and several points hit home with me – topics that I have talked about, trained on, and even touched on here in my blog. When I finished reading, I clicked on the comments tab and read the comments that were left and was so surprised by the first one that I immediately began writing a response.
The first reader commented that the article was akin to “Looking to sports for solutions to business problems makes as much sense as relying on the wisdom of Homer Simpson to determine national economic strategy.”

So I went ahead and said it, and disagreed with his assessment of the article, and found it to be shortsighted.

Ask any blog writer about what topics you should be writing on, and they will suggest that you find something out there that you don’t agree with and write a piece that is counterpoint to their opinion. I never really found writing in this direction attractive. Maybe I just never hit on anything that I felt worth disagreeing with. Who knows, maybe I am moving into a new phase of my writing. Alright, that was probably a bit deep.

Personally, in my humble opinion I agreed with the author of the article and went on to say this in the comment section:

Anyone that has played golf on a regular basis knows that it is indeed a head game. When I was learning in my youth, one coach told me that golf was 90% mental and 10% skill. Maybe there is more to it than just developing the skill to get the ball in the hole.

In reality that coach was smarter than I ever had the maturity to understand as a teenager. Allowing negative emotion to rule generally results in failure in most sports as losing control mentally relates so closely to losing control technically.

In business, this is also very true as can be confirmed by most anyone that has sold or managed or consulted for any length of time. Numerous books have been written on the psychology of selling as well as the mental aspects of nearly every facet of business.

No one likes a stressed out consultant – they push too hard, oversell, and end up under delivering. As a search professional, I have trained and provided advice to lots of business owners on the effects of their mental game and the author uncovered the right answers in her research of the topic.

Sometimes slowing down, relaxing and recharging has the greatest positive impact on achieving the end result that you want. It is true in golf, because the most consistent players have total control over their mental game.

The article touches on another key concept, and that is visualization. This technique has been used by Super Bowl athletes, Olympic athletes and others at the pinnacle of their sporting careers as well as many of the top business professionals in sales, management, consulting and my profession recruiting.

Visualizing success, seeing the past successes, and staying focused on your ability to do it again has the greatest impact on you actually doing it.

The bottom line here is that the article successfully draws the parallel with the mental and psychological aspects of business and sports – and if you disagree, you have to stand up to Zig Ziglar, Denis Waitley, Tony Robbins and hundreds of other experts that have written about it as well as coached, counseled and spoken about it for years.

Stay positive, visualize success and get your game (or business) to where you want it to be!